Lakers point guard Steve Blake will be out a minimum of six weeks after being diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. DANNY MOLOSHOK, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

EL SEGUNDO – Steve Blake will miss a minimum of six weeks after being diagnosed with an elbow injury, leaving the Lakers with no healthy point guards and few options.

Blake had an MRI on Thursday, which showed a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. He incurred the injury in the second half of the Lakers’ loss to Washington on Nov. 26 when got his arm trapped by John Wall’s body and pulled it free.

“Crazy things happen, and you've just got to try to stay positive. I'm still a little bit in shock right now that I'm having another injury and have to sit out,’ Blake said. “I was really enjoying the way things were going. It is tough.”

Blake played six games with the injury, and it affected his shooting. He had made just 11 of 37 3-pointers since the Washington game.

“He played about four, five games with a torn ligament in his elbow,” Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “He practiced left handed, and then, he would play right-handed.”

The veteran will receive a platelet-rich plasma injection in the tear and not accompany the team on its four-game trip that begins in Oklahoma City on Friday.

“I’m just really heartbroken for him,” Kobe Bryant said. “He’s put in a lot of work. He’s having a phenomenal year, so (I) feel really, really bad for him.”

Blake joins fellow point guards Steve Nash (root nerve irritation) and Jordan Farmar (hamstring) on the bench. General Manager Mitch Kupchak said he doesn’t have any immediate plans to sign another point guard.

“We’ll continue to look but to find a player who doesn’t belong to somebody right now, that can come in and play in front of Kobe, in front of Xavier (Henry), in front of Jodie (Meeks), its unlikely,” Kupchak said.

“Maybe there’s a player out there that we can take a look at, bring him in. It’s a good time of year, 10-day contracts don’t start until mid-January, so it’s a good time to perhaps look at a player, but I don’t think there’s somebody we could bring in and start and who is going to play big minutes.”

Leandro Barbosa, Darrius Morris and Chris Duhon are among those on Kupchak’s radar.

In the meantime, D’Antoni said the team will “go bigger” and start Bryant at point guard with Henry and Meeks also seeing playing time at the spot.

“We won't go as fast,” D’Antoni said. “We'll just try to pound it in and try to play a different way.”

Bryant, who has played two games since being out for eight months because of a torn Achilles’ tendon, will be matched up against Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook in his first task as point guard. Westbrook is averaging 21.2 points and 6.4 assists a game.

“I don't really have a choice right now,” Bryant said. “I got to get out there and do a lot more than expected in terms of handling the ball and doing significantly more running.”

KOBE VS. JIM BROWN

Byrant doesn’t know NFL Hall of Famer Jim Brown. He has never met the former Cleveland running back and certainly hasn’t talked to him.

So Bryant said he was caught off-guard by Brown’s recent comments he made while appearing on the Arsenio Hall Show when he said the Lakers star didn’t understand African-American history because he grew up in Italy.

"He is somewhat confused about culture because he was brought up in another country so it doesn't quite fit (with) what's happening in America,” Brown said.

Brown added that if he were to again hold the black athlete summit that was held in the early ’70s regarding Muhammad Ali’s refusal to fight in the Vietnam War, “there’d be some athletes I wouldn’t call. He’d be one of them.”

Bryant said that although Brown’s comments “came out of left field” he welcomed the discussion.

“No matter where you come from, if you come from Italy or Inglewood or if you come from London, it doesn’t matter,” Bryant said. “Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what skin color you have … but I think it’s a good place to start the education with one another and try to improve as a society.”

Bryant said he would not reach out to Brown, adding, “The thing I try to do is to educate our youth going forward, no matter what color skin you are — African-American, white, whatever the case might be — and try to talk about having a bright future and how to help the kids going forward and progress as a society as a whole.”

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